


an unmistakable sign of affection

by taronfirth



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Barista!Eggsy, Christmas, Conversations in the Rain, Flower Language, Jealous!Eggsy, Love Language, M/M, Meet-Cute, Misunderstanding, Mutual Pining, a slow fall into love, coffee shop AU, happy holidays, hartwin au, pining!Eggsy, pining!Harry, when you are the crush of someone you have a crush on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taronfirth/pseuds/taronfirth
Summary: His favourite regular always came into the shop at the exact same time with an umbrella in hand regardless of the weather, ordered the same drink and sat by a table not too far from the glass wall.He was also the only man on God's green Earth who could swallow Eggsy's coffee.(In which Eggsy is curious about the man who never fails to bring an umbrella when London was sunny and forgets to bring it the moment it starts to rain.)
Relationships: Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 47





	an unmistakable sign of affection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mang_o](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mang_o/gifts), [elletromil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elletromil/gifts), [unwinthehart (NeideLunare)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeideLunare/gifts), [harttwin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harttwin/gifts).



> A thank-you gift to all the people who have supported me with kudos/likes and wrote me beautiful and kind words :">

Eggsy was leaning slightly close to the cashier counter when he heard the usual, clear jingles flowing one after another from the shop door. An antique-looking bell had been installed there earlier that day, much to Eggsy’s chagrin.

“An ingenious idea to make the place more rustic and a reminder of the bygone times,” proclaimed the shop owner slash Eggsy’s uncle as he brandished the cursed object for the first time in front of his bored nephew.

His obsessive need to jam more authenticity to this coffee shop nearly drove Eggsy insane sometimes. The place looked like an outcome of a bad marriage between Sleeping Beauty’s cottage house and a neighbourhood-wide Christmas decoration competition.

Eggsy’s shift always began in the evening and ended four hours before morning shift started. In other words, exactly when most sleep-deprived students and white-collar workers temporarily stopped their patronage.

All except for one brave individual.

“Can I grab a medium-sized soy latte, please?” asked the man who just entered the shop.

Eggsy surreptitiously glanced at the clock on the wall. Again, it was 19:00 sharp.

“And can you make it-”

“-hot with more soy milk than coffee?” Both Eggsy and the man effortlessly said in unison. He flashed a bright grin to his one and only regular customer as if to proudly demand a ‘Praise me, please.’

However, Eggsy had pretty good self-restraint for someone who had been wallowing in the pit of unrequited feelings for days, so he said the following instead:

“You got it, Harry!”

And instantly, Eggsy inwardly cringed at himself for his over-the-top cheery delivery, turning a casual line into something too fake, too _hospitable_. A shopkeeper-customer relationship was essentially between strangers. It meant professional distance, and Eggsy would prefer not to reinforce theirs.

Though, Harry seemed to pay it no mind as he smiled one of Eggsy’s favourite smiles in the world and said, “Thank you, Eggsy.”

Every time he saw the corners of Harry’s mouth raised into a gentle form of gratitude, his heart was instantly struck by a soul-shattering beam of light. This anomaly made it exceptionally difficult for him to maintain a calm façade.

He bit his lower lip and avoided eye contact with Harry. 

After the payment, Harry picked up his umbrella which he had placed under the counter and walked in long strides to a table near a glass wall and sat down.

He extracted a piece of folded paper and a pen from his breast pocket, placing them both neatly on the table, his gentle fingers applying adequate pressure at each corner to straighten out the crumpled ends.

The paper was lined and of normal quality. It was also void of scribbles.

A completely fresh canvas.

At first, Eggsy hazarded the ridiculous notion that Harry was a high-ranking MI6 agent with how secretive and odd his behaviour was. As days passed, he came up with even more bizarre scenarios and occupations for Harry and under which circumstances would he want to enter Eggsy's shop. He hoped he would be able to find out about it from Harry some time soon.

Whilst Eggsy busied himself at the coffee machine, his customer had finished his ritual, one which Eggsy had secretly observed long enough to memorise everything by now. In fact, Eggsy could calculate the perfect moment when Harry was done with his ‘work’ setup to bring out his latte for him.

With light and careful steps, Eggsy headed to the table where Harry was sitting at.

It was one of those instances when he felt the utmost desire to freeze the cruel flow of time just so that his eyes could, within reasons, carve all the lines on Harry’s profile into his memory.

As the physical gap between them gradually came to a close, Eggsy’s legs slowed down in increments, until it was at an embarrassing snail-pace.

“Here’s your coffee, Harry,” Eggsy said when he finally placed the to-go coffee cup down in front of Harry.

“Ta, Eggsy,” thanked Harry, his honey-brown eyes looking up from the paper and unknowingly healed Eggsy’s soul with them in the process.

London had transitioned into a season where the evening breeze turned terribly crisp and could curl the breath leaving your lungs into white puffs of smoke in the air. Eventually, people would wrap themselves up under layers and layers of clothes to sustain a tiny bit of warmth. Shivering bodies frantically sought after a heat source.

And it was only natural that Harry immediately extended his hand to grab the hot cup of coffee, one which Eggsy had yet to retrieve his own hand from.

Eggsy’s fingers trembled imperceptibly during the split second their skin came into contact.

Like the way Harry standing at full height could easily tower over him, his hands were also significantly larger than Eggsy’s. Since it had instinctively curved to shape around the cup, the coolness of Harry’s finger tips reached all the way to the skin at Eggsy’s wrist. Contradicted to it, the emanating warmth from his palm burned at Eggsy’s knucles like a fiery flame.

Instantaneously, Eggsy was reminded of that rainy day in a small London alley.

The familiarity of it jostled Eggsy out of his daze. He withdrew his hand at once, as if escaping from a deep, spell-bound slumber.

“Sorry!” said Eggsy and Harry together.

And because he was afraid of seeing Harry’s reaction, Eggsy hastily added, “A ha! Time for me to take out the trash!”

He made a beeline for the counter, mumbling excessive expletives at himself for the words he threw out in a moment of panic.

Harry was definitely thinking that this barista was crazy on top of providing terrible service. ‘A ha’? Where was Eggsy’s brain hiding?

He disappeared to behind the pantry door for a moment then as if having remembered something, popping his head out again and called, “Harry?”

“Yes, Eggsy?” responded Harry, head titling slightly.

“Do you mind looking after the shop while I’m gone? It’s not gonna be too long.”

“Am I just free labour to you now?” joked Harry.

“Are you kidding? There’s literally nothing about you that says free,” said Eggsy under his breath.

“What?” asked Harry.

Right away, Eggsy said, “Nothing! I said that you’re my favourite regular.”

Harry immediately looked around as if to ask ‘ _You_ have regulars?’

It would have been an expression of heartless humour if they did not know each other and Eggsy was not a complete melted mess when Harry was around. 

‘It was true’, Eggsy thought whilst dragging out a bag of trash, ‘no one can stand my coffee besides him’.

He let out a thoughtful sigh, recalling the first time he served Harry at the shop.

His uncle had assigned Eggsy the late-night shift because of two reasons:

One, the chances for someone to not throw up from drinking one of Eggsy’s concoctions were slim to none. He actually pitied the people who had had the unfortunate experience of tasting his brew. He was trying his best, he really was.

And two, it was urgent and he was too short of staff to find someone that could fill in during the off-peak hours. Eggsy was there to cater for drunk club-goers and maybe truck drivers. Most days, he simply clocked in, cleaned everything, then clocked out.

On Eggsy’s third day as a fledging barista, Harry suddenly waltzed in, turned Eggsy’s world upside down with his ethereal existence, and his life had never been the same since.

Eggsy was filled with nervous jittery as he presented Harry his latte.

‘He’s going to dump it in the trash can the moment he’s outside and I’d never be able to see him again,’ he thought bitterly. ‘But I want him to stay.’

Then Harry took a sip of his coffee and did not vomit.

“Is it to your liking-” Eggsy added tentatively, “-sir?”

“It’s perfect,” Harry said. “Thank you.”

“No,” Eggsy shook his head, “thank _you_.”

Harry smiled and walked to a table near the glass wall, he sat down and did not leave until an hour later.

Eggsy held the belief that Harry was being outrageously kind and simply complimented him out of habit.

Harry never, ever drank more than three sips of coffee whilst at the shop and he always ordered a to-go cup to take it with him when he left.

Sometimes, he even entertained the thought of telling Harry to perhaps try out another store right around the corner which had much better lattes than the Eggsy-made ones.

But once, Eggsy was cleaning up a table near Harry’s and out of nowhere, he asked Harry again whether or not he liked the coffee.

And Harry smiled and said it was ‘divine’, going so far as to swallow a huge gulp without wincing. He left soon after, bringing the cup with him. He was back the next day, same time, same order.

In his heart, Eggsy almost cried because this absolutely cemented the hard fact that Harry had no taste buds and he was a perfect customer, nay, man for Eggsy.

The idea of recommending a new store for Harry to try was abandoned just like that.

Instead, he adopted a new habit of referring to his brand new customer as Mr. Nice Smile-Unwin, because deep in his heart, they were already married.

Eggsy nearly let it slipped once when he was taking Harry’s order and he had to bury it with a half-truth:

“Sorry, you’re honestly my most frequent customer and I don’t even know your name.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Harry said, flustered, as if it was his fault that he did not immediately give up his name to an entire stranger.

“It’s nothing. I keep calling you as ‘my regular’ in my head all this time.”

“Oh? All this time?” repeated Harry, one eyebrow raised. “I’m honoured, am I your favourite regular?”

“Come on, I have plenty of customers, you’re hardly my-” Eggsy instintively retorted, then stopped himself short and corrected his statement with a defeated sigh, “Yes. You’re my only regular.”

“I’m Harry.”

“But to be my favourite regular comes with great responsibility- Say what?”

“My name’s Harry, belatedly.” Harry grinned and out of the blue, he raised his one free hand up as if to ask for a friendly handshake.

Eggsy noticed that he had no golden band around his ring finger. 

‘Are we closing a car deal here or something?’ thought Eggsy, but he took the proffered hand nevertheless.

His breath hitched at the familiar feeling of the heat from Harry’s hand.

“I’m Eggsy. Nice to meet you,” he said lamely.

“Eggsy,” Harry echoed, the syllables rolling off his tongue in a smooth, silvery tone. “It’s a pleasure to know you.”

From that moment on, Mr. Nice Smile-Unwin became Mr. Harry Nice Smile-Unwin, long and winded the alias might seem.

Eggsy returned from the back door and resumed his task of standing at the cashier and staring longingly at his favourite regular.

His reverie soon came to a startling halt when the shop bell started its hellish jingles again and alerted him of a new customer.

“Hello, welcome to The Busy Bean,” he intoned automatically, eyes barely leaving Harry’s spot.

“Oh, Eggy boy. So here you are, huh?” spat a voice he had not heard from for months now.

Eggsy’s blood ran cold as he could easily pick it out from a police line-up. He started the head count, one, two, three, fuck, the four of them were all here.

“Dean, what are you doing here?” asked Eggsy calmly.

“Take a wild guess, Egg boy,” came Dean’s reply.

He wondered if there was a way to tell Harry to leave now, please, because he did not want Harry to be involved in this.

Whatever ‘this’ was coming down to, it sure was going to be very a darned mess.

“Harry,” called Eggsy, turning to look at Harry’s table to find that no one was there.

‘Good, at least he smelled trouble early and left. I hope he called the police at least,’ thought Eggsy.

A clipped click came from the door lock.

The abrupt sound alone was enough to attract all five heads’ attention to the door.

There stood Harry, who threw an adorable smile at the people whom he had locked inside the shop.

“What’s wrong?” said Harry casually, his innocent eyes betrayed nothing.

“Your head, when I finished with you,” growled Dean.

Harry checked his watch for the time, which Eggsy firmly believed was insanely reckless and incredibly attractive at the same damn time.

“It is indeed a tad late, but I do hope that once this is over, you will learn more about manners,” said Harry, picking up his umbrella, “-and hopefully grammar as well.”

Then, his voice turned serious.

"With that in mind, shall we start our lesson?"

And with those last words, he stepped into the fray. 


End file.
